Trump's biographer Michael Wolff claims Trump tweets crossed the line with many White House staff
08:02, Sun, Feb 8, 2026 Updated: 08:07, Sun, Feb 8, 2026
President Trump has angered his White House staff (Image: Getty)
Trump’s latest controversy seems to have pushed some of his staff over the edge, as his former biographer claims it was the president himself who posted the racist Obama's monkey edit. The US President posted a minute-long video about voting machine anomalies on his verified account; however, towards the end of the video, The Obamas flash up as apes, laughing and dancing in a jungle to "The Lion Sleeps Tonight".
The now-deleted post sparked widespread backlash, with California Governor Gavin Newsom describing it as “disgusting behaviour”. Despite this, Trump has insisted that it was one of his staffers who posted the video hours after it went online, even claiming, “I didn’t make a mistake."
But now, Trump biographer Michael Wolff has claimed that statement was a lie and that, behind the scenes, White House staff are getting increasingly frustrated.
Speaking on his Inside Trump’s Head podcast, Wolff said: “I spoke to people in the White House about this and their view was ‘whoa’, let me quote ‘[he’s] off his meds’.
“Which is an interesting thing that they can acknowledge when Trump is too Trumpy and when he has gone further than they would have expected.
“They acknowledge that something probably happened and something pushed him over the edge.”
Michael Wolff made the claims on his podcast (Image: Getty)
However, publicly, the White House has attempted to defend the video, describing it as an "internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from The Lion King."
Meanwhile, Ben Rhodes, who worked in the Obama administration, added: "Let it haunt Trump and his racist followers that future Americans will embrace the Obamas as beloved figures while studying him as a stain on our history."
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Before the video was taken down, press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed “fake outrage” over the post. After several calls for its removal, the White House said that it was posted by a staffer in error.
The post was part of dozens of rambling Truth Social posts that continued his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, despite it being found that there was no evidence of systemic fraud.
4 days ago
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English (US) · 